17And
let the brightness of the Lord
our God be upon us: and direct the works of our hands over us; yea, the
work of our hands do you direct.

Psalm 89, it seems to me, is the high point of this set of Lauds psalms, and key to understanding the whole set. Attributed to Moses, it not only contains many references to morning and light, it also provides the link between these and the truth and mercy theme.

Truth and mercy

The overarching theme is God's eternity, compared to the ephemeral nature of our life on this earth. And against this background God confronts us with the truth about ourselves:

You have set our iniquities before your eyes: our life in the light of your countenance.

Sinful and doomed to die, mankind lies suffering, awaiting God's mercy; then the Lord indeed arrives on this earth, creating for us a morning that is the dawn of the new creation, where in we can live forever with God:

We are filled in the morning with your mercy: and we have rejoiced, and are delighted all our days.

What is necessary for this to occur: that we cultivate humility, and allow the Lord to direct the works of our hands:

We have rejoiced for the days in which you have humbled us: for the years in which we have seen evils....and direct the works of our hands over us; yea, the work of our hands do you direct.

Cassiodorus and many others saw this is as a key prayer, perhaps used daily by the people in their desert wanderings, and in his introduction to it, he offers a mini-treatise on the effects of prayer:

A prayer, by which the
Lord's anger is deferred, pardon gained, punishment avoided, and generous
rewards obtained when he speaks to the Lord, gossips with the Judge, and
pictures before his eyes Him whom he cannot see.

By his prayer he placates Him
whom he eagerly exalts by his actions.

Prayer in some sense affords clois­tered
converse with the Lord, and offers an opportunity for intimations; the sinner
is granted access to the Judge's inner sanctum, and the only person rejected is
he who is found lukewarm in his prayer.

He seeks what he desires, he acquires
more than he deserves. He approaches his prayer with melancholy, but departs
from it in glad­ness.

Prayer which is holy saves the committed and makes them blessed;
it also welcomes the wicked. There are countless examples of this blessing, but
it must suffice that the Lord Himself in giving us precepts for living deigned
to pray. So it is appropriate that a prayer was placed before this noble and great
man, who often softened the angry Lord with a marvellous mode of entreaty for
us to follow.

Cassiodorus summarises the content of the psalm as follows:

Moses,
a most holy man remarkable for his achievements, and ven­erable because of his
converse with God, begins in the first section with praise of the Judge,
briefly recounting His kindnesses and His power. Next he asks for support for
our weakness, which he demon­strates with many instances. Thirdly, he begs that
the coming of the Lord Saviour may become known more quickly, for he knew that
it would afford benefits for the human race.

Life expectancy and the number of the psalms

Cassiodorus offers another reason for seeing this psalm as a key to the others, and that goes to the life expectancy of men (70 year or 80 if...) and the number of the psalms (ie 70+80=150).

The Fathers viewed numbers as part of the divine law, inherent in creation, as Cassiodorus explains here:

Let
us ponder, men of the greatest wisdom, how many mysteries of the sacred law are
revealed to us by the various numbers. ..Other mysteries of the divine law are contained in various numbers. We read that the grains of sand of the sea, the drops of rain, the hairs of men's heads are counted. So that we may in brief grasp the praise and power of the discipline of number, Solomon says that God has ordered all things in measure and number and weight. Thus it becomes clear and indubitable to all that the discipline of arithmetic is pervasive every­where.

In this particular case, he notes:

Moses here by computation of the numbers
seventy and eighty draws the lives of men together. The entire sequence of
psalms is embraced by that number...

Cassiodorus also alludes to the number symbolism here as referring to the combination of Old and New Testaments - the old symbolised by the seven days of creation (and perhaps also the 70 translators of the Septuagint); the new by the eighth day of the new creation.

Light

This psalm includes several references to the illuminating power of God, from lux, lucis (light), including:

17And let the brightness of the Lord our God be upon us: and direct the works of our hands over us; yea, the work of our hands do you direct.

It is worth noting that the expression that St Benedict uses in his rule (in the received text) on the time for Lauds is 'qui incipiente luce agendi sunt', or when light begins, starts to take hold. He also uses a word frequently used in these psalms to describe the hour itself: matutinis.In Scripture, first light and dawn are often described by reference to light for example: before the light (ante lucem, Psalm 62); at first light (prima luce, 1 Esdras 9:41); morning light (lux matutinas); lux aurora; light shining in the darkness; and so forth.

The most beautifully poetic of these is surely that of Psalm 18 (Prime on Saturday):